An engineering take on shielded speaker cable. In most places you don't need it. As the speaker is not grounded to power at the speaker, there is no ground loop path so the speaker is very immune to any common mode induced current in the cable. This covers most home installs where the speaker runs are relatively short. Paul, the constrained sound from a shielded cable is due to the extra capacitance to ground that is unbalanced with the speaker terminals. This happens when the speaker minus and the shield connect to the amplifier at two different locations as sometimes the shield is connected to the amp ground screw instead of the speaker terminal. This configuration is for normal amp installs. In a bridged amp setup, you do not want the shield to be connected to an active speaker hot signal so in a bridged application the shield is connected to the amplifier chassis ground screw. The only reason to use shielded speaker cables is in a very high RF signal environment as high power RF can bias the power output transistors and cause non linear rectification of the RF. If you are in a housing development with a back yard up against the field of a 25,000 Watt AM radio station, you are a good candidate for a full system RF shield solution. This most often will require the services of a pro RF engineer to mitigate the RF ingress into your system. In installs near high power AM radio stations that is causing problems with a stereo, often a high current capacity RF Coaxial cable will solve the problem. At one radio station, the speakers were connected with RG-8U coax to mitigate the problem in the monitors. Better equipment generally includes some RF chokes and bypass in the speaker output to reject this interference. This is most often a problem with cheap big box store stereos with little to no metal shielding. AM radio stations near them make them unusable.

@marianneoelund2940

4 жыл бұрын

The really tricky RF issues to find and fix, are when the neighborhood ham keys up at a particular frequency, but only about once a week.

@travis1240

3 жыл бұрын

You would need an extremely powerful RF signal at uncommon frequencies in order to induce audible noise in a speaker level run. Just run lamp cord at a reasonable guage and don't worry about it.

@isettech

3 жыл бұрын

@@marianneoelund2940 The ham radio operators are limited in power to 1KW in the USA. The higher their antenna the further you are away from the path of the RF. The ham does not want to hear the electrical noise of your PC and Router, and does not want to broadcast into your house to case RFI in your sound system. You are more likely to have issues with the CB radio operator as they are more likely to have unlicensed and improperly operating equipment with a lower and closer antenna. CB has restrictions on antenna height. Truckers on a nearby freeway are known for using extra power on a CB and have low elevation antennas.

@marianneoelund2940

3 жыл бұрын

@@isettech I used to own a 4x4 pickup, which had a CB installed by the previous owner. One day I pulled up behind a car with a CB which obviously had a high-power amplifier, and when they keyed up, I could hear their conversation through my CB's internal speaker - even though my radio was turned off!

All your videos are very informative and easy to understand. I have personally experienced sonic improvements in my audio system. The education you do provide also doesn’t require to break saving account. Please keep posting. Thanks 🎶🎵

Shielded cable are nonsense. A true audiophile builds a Faraday's cage around his house.

@motorradmike

5 жыл бұрын

curiosity saved the cat Hahahaha

@wilcalint

5 жыл бұрын

Here's an interesting read: www.fcc.gov/engineering-technology/laboratory-division/general/equipment-authorization I've had to deal with this several times in my career. It gives you an idea of the sensitivity of the issue. Remember if a box contains an oscillator of 9khz or more it can potentially cause interference. If my memory is right the Commodore 64, when released, spewed RF all over the radio frequency bands used by the first responders. Fire and Police.

@tomorrowtoday4839

5 жыл бұрын

The analog mastering room at Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs is set up this way!

@dle238321

5 жыл бұрын

curiosity saved the cat LOL True

@chrisvinicombe9947

5 жыл бұрын

Awesome comment 👍

Good explanation. I was specifically looking for this answer today

Actually one can have shielded speaker cable w/o using shielding. And end up with a better quality cable to boot. Requirements: 4 single conductors per speaker & a variable speed, reversing drill. Cut 4 lengths of wire, about a foot longer than needed. 2 Black, 2 red. Somehow tie, weigh down, put in vise, one end of each, alternate the colors. At the other end of the wires grab a black, red. Chuck together in a drill and twist clockwise until you have a tight twist. Weigh down that end, as you twist the other pair clockwise. Then chuck all 4 wires into the drill. And with the drill in reverse, slowly twist the 2 pairs counterclockwise until the counterclockwise twist is uniform the entire length. At that point the twisted cable will be stable. Then terminate black-black; red-red. If using 14 ga wire, the resulting 4 conductor cable will be equal to 11 ga. Using four 16 ga. = 13 ga.

Thank you for another excellent video , it’s much appreciated

As a car audio installer, I've experienced that alternator noise from a DC power cable induce into the speaker cable causing noise issue, when moving the power cable away from the speaker cable, the noise reduce proportional to the distance between the two cable. The induced noise is causing the amplifier to amplify it, but not all amplifier is vulnerable to this issue.

@tomkocur

5 жыл бұрын

you'd need a fkn microwave to induce a noise into a cable that has a 4ohm load connected. Even that might not be enough for that noise to be audible if the cable is straight. Noise issues in car audio are coming mostly from ground loops.

@mikka1986

5 жыл бұрын

@@ProximoNovio It is after the amplifier, swapping channel still come from same driver, which make no sense until I try to move the speaker cable away from the power cable. The induced noise affect the amplifier through speaker output. FYI, It's not a cheap piece of equipment.

@mikka1986

5 жыл бұрын

@@tomkocur it's not ground loop, because there are no RCA connected, swapping cable to another channel did not help, the noise still come from the exact same driver until I move the power cable apart.

@shimes424

5 жыл бұрын

@@mikka1986 "not rca connected" Noise picked up on speaker wire, fed into the 'high level inputs' then amplified. They knew what they were talking about. And I was going to say noise induced onto a 4ohm load would be impossible, but yeah, microwave might do it lol

@mikka1986

5 жыл бұрын

@@shimes424 It is induced through the output of the amplifier, my guess is the induced noise disturb the amplifier feedback circuit causing it to amplify the noise. You can try putting speaker cable parallel with unshielded AC power cable for experiment.

I use RG8 mini foam coax cable for speaker wire on my home stereo system. It helps reduce or eliminate RF interference to my stereo system from my Amateur Radio station, especially on HF (1.8 - 30 MHz) where I typically run 1500 watts.

I recall Paul having a video in which he said he had a song playlist for adjusting your EQ and crossover does anyone know the playlist or the video??

06:18, 06:45: Paul, I'm not clear what you're referring to here! Is the braid connected to B+ (?)

Well that just turned my thinking around 180 degrees Cool. Thanks

Thanks Paul. Are Mains cables shielded to protect them or adjacent interconnects?

@johnc8910

5 жыл бұрын

Generally, no.

@jimolson9671

5 жыл бұрын

It is always a good engineering practices do you separate power cables proper data cables. I buy she’ll need cables to ensure a noise free environment for my data cables

@Paul McGowan - Love the series! How and where do we submit these questions to “Ask Paul?”

It is right answer. What I want to add to final sentence about audio deteriorated by near by metals - I checked it and without doubt it is. Speaker relatively big currents induce in all near by metals currents and that increase wire inductance which is bad. It is good to keep speaker cables away from every metal min few cm. . .

Paul, Now that you are leasing the 8k sq ft of space, will you still have the 3 listening rooms?

Would an amp with large amounts of feedback be more sensitive to noise picked up from the speaker wire?

@Paulmcgowanpsaudio

5 жыл бұрын

Probably the opposite. Great amounts of feedback lowers output impedance and that makes it harder to develop a noise signal across the amp.

so, shielding does noting, but elevating the wires on expensive little stands makes the world of difference? Glad to know the snake oil stops someplace :)

Doesn't wire shielding act as a capacitor and a coil which is tied to ground?

@wilcalint

5 жыл бұрын

Yup

@wilcalint

5 жыл бұрын

Here's a pretty good representation of the equivalent circuit: www.compliance-club.com/archive/old_archive/020514n.jpg of a balanced pair.

Perhaps screening the cable causes a 'restricted' sound due to the increased capacitance between the signal conductor and ground? Two parallel conductors will have a finite capacitance between them, but not as much as the screened cable scenario. This capacitance would permit some of the higher frequency signals to go straight to ground rather than via the transducer.

Makes total sense!

Nice job as always Paul...( When you guy's move location's to the new building are you going to make a new Jazzy music intro to the "Ask Paul segment's).. It's a nice idea perhaps a video intro instead...

With the notable exception of those of us in amateur radio, our rigs can sometimes cause problems like subwoofers on standby, echoing our signals.

@maartenc6099

5 жыл бұрын

You don't use shielding but you use ferrite rod.

in my car one speaker wire(not the RCA) coming from the amp picks up noise from the interior ventilation motor the fan resistor, i have to pass the fan motor to get into the A pilar to get the wire into the door i have been shielding the wire with a special braided sleeve and still it pick the sound up do you or any one has a solution? and no i'm not gonna sell the car of eliminate the right door speaker

You are excited with the move, good movement! Tell them to Tannoy guys ha ha ha that shielding an speaker cable is unimportant. As many opinions as asses, I would say. This is what makes so fun this hobby.

I wanna known if the guy installing network in the ceiling is ok.

@kalijasin

4 жыл бұрын

@BlankBrain, You can run network cabling in the ceiling but I wouldn’t leave it dangling it should be in a raceway or installed alongside the joists stapled too using network cabling staples. Definitely use STP CAT7 too. That’s rated for runs of 100 meters if you use Gigabit Ethernet.

We upgraded to LED Ceiling lights, 6 in total... My colleague uses Bluetooth headphones not wired together and he always had a problem with these disconnecting and these had to be resetted because nothing helped, not even the support. After a while we found out that the last row, 2 LED lights or at least one of these caused the problem when turned on... Lights on, Boom, disconnected.

As usual, comments are many and varied. I like that you did leave an opening for exceptions,which exist for very rule, especially rules of thumb. You did not mention heat buildup in high power speaker cables, which is unlikely to be an issue until you get to hundreds of watts. Have you ever driven a 100w light bulb from a power amp? It turns out that a bridged amp putting out 600w into 8 ohms generates about 70 volts ac.

If speaker cables were relatively immune to induced noise because the speaker signal is "already very high level" then we should expect to hear induced noise during very quiet passages, the silence between cuts, and when a system's volume is turned completely down but this is not the case. The reasons that speaker cables need no shielding is that the low source and load impedances they connect result in very little induction and any noise that is induced is not subject to amplification.

@ThinkingBetter

5 жыл бұрын

Michael Kesti Yes, you are right. If you connect a power amplifier to another power amplifier and then to speakers using speaker cables for both, the first cable would be much more prone to noise as it wouldn’t be impedance wise shunted by a low speaker impedance.

@joshua43214

5 жыл бұрын

so... Where is the power coming from to drive the speakers if you are listening at very low volume? Are you suggesting that RF can induce enough current to move a driver? And if that is the case, where is the induced current finding it's ground?

@ThinkingBetter

5 жыл бұрын

joshua43214 I’m saying that if you used a power amplifier in series with another power amplifier, the cable between them would be prone to noise if using simple speaker cable as the input impedance of a power amp is high with low signal level making any induced noise more audible than what you can get between a power amp output and speaker terminals as both ends are low impedance.

@michaelkesti3917

5 жыл бұрын

1) Although I do not see the relevance, the power to drive the speakers comes from the power amp regardless of the listening level. 2) No. In fact, my point is that EMI, regardless of whether it is at radio frequencies (RF), cannot induce enough current to move drivers. 3) It's not the case.

@ThinkingBetter

5 жыл бұрын

Michael Kesti Yes, but read what I’m talking about. A cable between two power amps that are daisy chained will need much less energy exactly as the input impedance of a power amp is in the kilo Ohms. Of course a speaker cable between an amp and a speaker needs much more energy to create audible noise. Just simply saying it’s the low impedance of a passive speaker that makes it insensitive to noise. An active speaker is still sensitive to noise on the input.

What about twisting the wires in the speaker cable in figure 8?

i dont think you need to shield speaker cables it would be more important to shield input cables or keep them away from speaker cables as there could be some magnetic coupling that could cause interference would be my guess

Solar powered amplifiers and Power Plant purified solar energy for your home. Sounds like a good partnership, Paul.

The sound system at the church I attend was getting fm modulation through the speaker wires I could hear the goIden oldies I went to shielded cables and it went away. So yes there needed in some cases.

@marksmith2913

5 жыл бұрын

Yuki... If the church uses wireless mics then the golden oldies you were hearing was from a powerful radio station signal overloading the front end of the mics receivers, not from the speaker wires picking up the signal.

@catsbyondrepair

5 жыл бұрын

@@marksmith2913 it went away after I went to shielded cables. we use the new digital mics they don't get interference

@marksmith2913

5 жыл бұрын

The fact that the interference went away after you shielded the speaker wire is not related to the shielding and most likely a coincidence. Any wireless transmitter can can be affected by interference regardless of it being digital or analogue given the right circumstances.

@isettech

5 жыл бұрын

Yuki Jinuji, In some systems such as this, the golden oldies is from an AM radio station. Very seldom is an FM station demodulated by a non linear component in the system. A good technician will isolate the path the RF is getting into the system. The clue of the wireless microphones and the speaker cables tend to point in the direction of the prior speaker cable acted as an antenna raising the RF level in the sound booth which was rectified by the wireless mic receivers. With the addition of shielded speaker cables, most likely the shield was connected to the chassis ground and not the speaker minus terminal shunting the RF to ground instead of it floating on the output RF choke of the power amplifier to be coupled into the wireless microphones. A small RF Pi Filter and ferrite split core to absorb the RF would have worked wonders to shunt the RF off the unshielded speaker cables. The inductors would reduce current into the amplifier while the caps would shunt the RF to ground and the ferrite would absorb the RF energy to prevent re-radiation to other components in the booth. I'm presuming the golden oldies would turn up and down with the wireless mic in the above configuration. Most often the unshielded cable in the presence of a strong AM radio station will directly couple into the back end of the amplifier and become rectified directly and in this case the golden oldies plays at a constant level whether the console is turned up or down, and often will play when the amp is turned down. This is part of the work I do for a living.

@catsbyondrepair

5 жыл бұрын

@@isettech it was only on my passive monitors not on the mains and there is a radio station across the street .

What's the PS stand for?

@curiosity_saved_the_cat

5 жыл бұрын

Stan Warren was Paul Mcgowans partner in the beginning. “Ok,” I said, drooling over the $500. “What would we call this new company?” “Why, I thought it obvious,” said Stan, “PS Audio, for Paul and Stan.” www.psaudio.com/mission/

He could be a specialist but we are audiophiles as such give us straight answers.

Well I disagree maybe not completely shouldered but running a separate single thin wire down the middle is beneficial and separating your plus and negative wires by half an inch just pull them apart and stick them down with duct tape on both sides and run the single core wire in the middle ideally connected to the chassis of the drivers the magnet end.

@tomkocur

5 жыл бұрын

what kind of nonsense is that. Separating the wires from each other only makes the cable MORE susceptible to inducing the noise. And still ... you got low impedance of amplifier on one end and low impedance of speaker on the other. To induce any kind of audible noise into such a cable, you'd need an antenna that would melt your brain.

@johnsweda2999

5 жыл бұрын

Tomas Kuruc it changes the inductance and capacitance of the cable if it's good enough for van den hul its good enough for me.

@johnc8910

5 жыл бұрын

" . . . separating your plus and negative wires . . . " You don't have positive and negatives wires. Speakers carry AC power. Plus, shielding does not work that way. If it did, you wouldn't need truly shielded cables.

@experiment54

5 жыл бұрын

Step 1 - pull your speaker cables apart Step 2 - twist them together Step 3 - reconnect Step 4 - enjoy better sound

@kraklakvakve

5 жыл бұрын

@@johnc8910 Yes, speakers use AC, but the phase is important. That is why there is a "plus" and a "minus" conductor.

The argument for shielded speaker cables is a problem that RF can enter the negative feedback loop of the amplifier and cause it to misbehave relative to the signal you are trying to amplify. Some people see the speaker cable as an antenna that takes rf noise into the amplifier. Companies like DNM Reson have little networks that you can add to their cables to reduce the effects of Rf entering the amplifier.

@andydelle4509

5 жыл бұрын

While this popular "RFI into the feedback path" theory is plausible, it's not likely to happen. Keep in mind the actually impedance of a modern DC coupled amplifier output is in the fractions of ohms. It's going to take quite a lot of RF power to impress a voltage against that impedance. Next to a 50kw AM radio station, you might have a problem. Otherwise the source impedance is far too low for this to be a problem.

...... can sound constricting....... I'll forgive you that one ;) I subscribe to the rest of your explanation. Maybe you could have tossed in "Signal to Noise ratio"... You know, the relevant figure related to the issue, that puts it in perspective for anyone who wants more understanding of the subject. Other than that... 🙏

One big reason to avoid shielding loudspeaker cables is that the parallel capacitance between the signal conductor and the shield can lead to the amplifier becoming unstable. Nobody want 100 W at a frequency that only dogs can hear. Most competent amplifiers should be stable into a capacitive load, but that's not true for all amplifiers.

Excellent, Paul. No snake oil.

@amirs5512

5 жыл бұрын

lizard oil however...

You changed the KZread channel name from Paul McGowan to PS Audio

I use shielded speaker wire because it looks cool...

@shanec6664

3 жыл бұрын

That’s why I got some cool chunky purple rca cables , it looks cool and sturdy

Thanks Paul cause I was about to spend stupid $ on shielded speaker cables. Thought it was a waste as I run straight 14-2 romeo and sounds fckn great. Hahahahahaha

Never use 12v lighting in a critical listening space. Transformer noise interferes with everything.

use twisted wires, like the old phone cables, no noise.

Back in the day when I was using a budget receiver I had always been aware of a signal noise (hiss) it was only subtle but still very annoying! I obviously made sure my power cables were given plenty of space, I even had my speaker cables layed out in the middle of the room just to make sure I wasn't picking up any kind interference. After auditioning several AVRs and still experiencing the same type of hiss, if became apparent to me actually it's the cables that were the problem. Considering I was in a middle of an upgrade, I thought I'll start with what was annoying me the most so I changed my 18-gauge cables for the 14-gauge amazonbasics and even though their was a slight improvement in sound quality, the same hiss still remained! It was only when I finally purchased shielded cables that the hiss interference had finally been eliminated 🥳 Probably because of the aluminium shield protecting the cables from RF/EMI interference. Now that my noise floor has become so quiet! I finally felt confident to go ahead and go high end with a 5.2.4 setup! Here's a 3-minute video of the setup... kzread.info/dash/bejne/qqqY06tuob3HZso.html

If you are to ground ground 1 side only .do not ground both sides .you will get floating voltages

OK, but does shielding degrade audio quality, dynamics and high frequencies?

Parallel cables induce interference....that is why UTP (Unshielded Twisted Pair) cables came into existence and basically "phase out" interference!

@tomkocur

5 жыл бұрын

UTP is parallel cables, they're just twisted.

with such large spaces, you could create a room to apply physical punishments to your employees whenever they fail. I'm joking

hahaha and i have shilded speaker cabels and im sure there is a difference in Dynamics. -Im a Monster :D

@FairyNL

5 жыл бұрын

Me too. Supra PLY 3.4 cables. Price wasn't that much higher than unshielded and the cable is nice and thick. Cannot say I hear a difference though.

@X197ToPlay

5 жыл бұрын

I use Dynavox cabels 100€ per pair (Sound like Very short cabels) in Bi-wierring and Dynavox 60€ pair (maid the moste difference in better Dynamics) for the input. But they gave many more improvments than only the two that i mengend. whit Kef-Q900 Yamaha RX-497 and Asus Essence STX II. can hear differenced clearly even whitout a power filter. Greeting from Germany ;)

@bryanp4827

5 жыл бұрын

The difference is measured in placebos, and I'm guessing yours is on point...lmao

@bavissimo96

4 жыл бұрын

@@FairyNL im also a big fan of these Supra PLY 3.4 cables. They sound full and clear in coparison with my bare wire copper gauge 12

I shield mine in pure snake oil...works a treat!😆😄😄😄😆😄😄😅😅😆😆😄😄😅😄😄

@m.morininvestor9920

4 жыл бұрын

My cables are in a submerged in pool of pure snake oil and I wrapped them in 180 layers of Aluminium foil. 😆

so why are you advocating extensive speaker cables then?

he takes people on a merry go around.

Hey paul, can you talk about the pros and cons of using cat 5 cable for speaker wire? Thanks! this is Tim from Cincinnati

@proletaire6442

5 жыл бұрын

I'd be interested in this as well. I have a NuForce Icon2 integrated desktop amp which uses Cat5 speaker cables.

@AndyBHome

5 жыл бұрын

Clearly Cat5 and Cat6 cable are designed for digital data transfer, so they could vary a lot in how well they would be for audio while being identical for data. Cat5 and Cat6 are both designed to be good at a specific voltage and amperage and that's certainly not the same as as audio, but I see no reason why it might not be good, perhaps even very good. Cat6e often has a core that separates the wire pairs and they all have 8 wires in them so you could "quad-wire" a speaker by putting the signal through all 4 pairs. I have not tried it but I wire computers and phones and now I am curious to see how well it would work.

@AnOriginalYouTuber

5 жыл бұрын

Current and voltage might be a concern. Ethernet wires are thin and would heat up or even melt with larger systems. Most decent amps can push 50 volts or more. You might get arcing between the wires. You might get away with bundling all internal wires together, using two for each speaker. Its not worth risking an amplifier with. You'd be better off using extension cords to be safe. Better to buy oxygen free copper speaker cables.

@juliaset751

5 жыл бұрын

I have used Cat5 for speaker cable and it works well. You will have to pull the wire pairs out of the jacket. Leave the twisted pairs as-is and braid together the pairs. A standard cable of four 24 Ga. pairs will only be the equivalent of 18 Ga. so you will have to combine them. Sixteen pairs braided together (four cables worth) will give you about 12 Ga. Use the solid colors for one leg and the striped for the other. May I suggest Belden 1585A, rated for 300V. Have fun!

@tomkocur

5 жыл бұрын

RJ45 is NOT Cat5. NuForce Icon2 is NOT using a Cat5 cable. Using Cat5 or Cat6 for a speaker cable is a retarded idea, speakers need low cable resistance, which Cat5 doesn't provide. You'll be both losing power on the cable AND you are decreasing the damping factor.

5 thumbs down from Monster cables

How are shielded speaker cables grounded? Because they generally don't seem to have any 'drain wire', or anything that can actually do the grounding.

Short answer: No. People don't half believe some rubbish! I've never had shielded speaker cables in 40 years, and guess what? I've heard a lot of very nice sounds! It's signal cables that require shielding, due to the very low levels.

@Paul....you need to run around with an AM radio to show how much interference different electrical devices emit!!!

@wilcalint

5 жыл бұрын

AM radio is only 535-1605 kHz. WiFi 2.4Ghz & 5.725 Ghz -> 5.875 Ghz, Bluetooth 900Mhz -> 3.2Ghz. FM radio 88 -> 108Mhz. www.ntia.doc.gov/files/ntia/publications/2003-allochrt.pdf Kinda makes your head explode.

@johnc8910

5 жыл бұрын

An AM radio makes a dandy short range, pulse radar detector. It will pick up the pulse modulation. Drive past an airport sometime. Those frequency allocation charts are an international agreement. The International Telecommunication Union gets together every other year to decide how to divide up the RF spectrum. That chart is about 15 years out of date.

3:10. ‘No.’ You’re welcome...

I have heard about these LEDs . The LED for WiFi transmitting radiation interferes with radio signals every ware . I turn my WiFi off and it still the same as there WiFi users leave it tuned ON all the time . An LED can be used as a hidden microphone as well .

@juliaset751

5 жыл бұрын

I am in the middle of a remodel, and I am moving over to all LED. I have been concerned about the noise from the power supplies. I can put the power supplies in a shielded box, but I’m also concerned about what they are putting into my power lines.

@shaun9107

5 жыл бұрын

Believe it or not they are having these lights connected & controlled on line Fridges all sorts so thats up to you . Paul replaced the funny ones but it all sounds funny to me . Its the LED

6:53 REASON WHY: even speaker cables emit electrical noise, and the shield will contain that noise inside the cable. The noise from one conductor is the signal on the other conductor. They each absorb a little EFI from each other, which causes higher amplitudes to have more "dampening" effect on itself. Put a voltage (amped signal) on a wire, it will emit EFI. Increase the voltage (volume, power, amplitude, whatever you want to call that knob) and the EFI increases. Since a speaker cable has the wires running parallel to each other, the separation between each is important. Under normal power factors (8ohm speakers on a receiver) and to normal ears (not snobby ones) the difference is negligable, if not immeasurable. Now shield that EFI into the speaker wire, and you have stopped most of the EFI from escaping into the room, but it now wants to go onto the other wire. Because the other wire is completely opposite polarity as the other, it absorbs more EFI than the shielding. Better ground yields better results, but USUALLY not as good as removing the shield.

The only reason I see to shield a speaker cable is to eliminate the 50Hz hum from nearby power cables when the sound system is off. And even then it's only worth the effort if there's no way to reroute the cables or to just shield the offending power cable instead.

@tomkocur

5 жыл бұрын

If your speakers are picking a 50Hz hum from power cables, there are either 400kV lines in your living room, or it's not from a speaker cable. The most common reason you get a 50Hz hum is a ground loop.

@fermitupoupon1754

5 жыл бұрын

Not in my case. The problem was a power cable to a pc monitor that ran parallel to a speaker cable for a good metre. With everything packed into a cable track that is made out of iron wire. My best guess is that the cable track acted like the core in a coil and causing the 50hz in the one speaker. If it was a ground loop it'd affect both speakers, not just the one whose cable happened to share an iron cable track with a power lead. And it wouldn't have gone away when that specific speaker cable was rerouted.

As a worker in the HiFi trade / industry it amazes me when I CONSTANTLY read comments from “ engineers / sound gurus “ stating ridiculous comments of “ snake oil “ nonsense, a big con trick etc.... GUYS , just very very simply go to ANY reputable retailer and ask them to take some decent shielded speakers cable / interconnects and use them on a home trail. ONLY THEN can you pass comment!!! Making a comment on social media without you physically trying the aforementioned cables etc is not only completely ridiculous it is also totally disrespectful to people who work in the industry and have a career in this business. To finish it is only you that is missing out as the difference IS NIGHT & DAY!!! Try it out , you have NOTHING TO LOOSE , you will though have SO MUCH TO GAIN!!! Your big loss not mine!!!!

@joshfoss7407

5 жыл бұрын

Yea, we should ask people that sell a thing if the thing is worth buying. Logic checks out.

Yes I shield my cables with aluminium foil and tape. It's a cheap improvement that makes a noticeable difference. Also helps power cables too.

@juliaset751

5 жыл бұрын

Do you ground the foil?

@chrisvinicombe9947

5 жыл бұрын

@@juliaset751 lol no. I know I'm supposed to ground the power cables at the plug end but haven't experimented with that yet. Weirdly even without being earthed it still makes a noticeable (small) difference to details and bass tone. Might be cos my tiny room and plug location means having all the cables running together for a short time. I originally tried this shielding on a £2 5 meter eBay cable that was picking up loads of noise. It worked so I thought maybe it'll work for other cables. Now all of my cables are wrapped 😄.

@tomkocur

5 жыл бұрын

You're hallucinating, Chris. Get yourself some medicine.

your zipper is down lol but grate video

@bryanp4827

5 жыл бұрын

Great spelling...👍

Wrap...

Wouldn't shielding speaker wire to reduce noise being picked up be better than doing nothing. In say a super long run like a house system where you have the wiring in your walls for like 300+ feet.

Shielded s-s-speaker cables-s-s-s-s 🐍 🐍 🐍

@bryanp4827

5 жыл бұрын

👍

Whe should shield the audio industry from distrubuting snake oil about hifi

@bryanp4827

5 жыл бұрын

Absolutely!

All that RF can't be healthy

Why do you guys do it to yourselves???!!!

No need.

I disagree. Have you ever listened to speaker cables from U.K.'s Chord Company. Shielding makes a huge difference! Also, cables act as antennae, and lead unwanted noise into your system even if 100 % of the high level signal reaches the speaker.

Huge waste of time off topic